Stinque Book Club

Your mind is a vibrator.Title: “Think and Grow Rich”

Author: Napoleon Hill

Rank: 88

Blurb: “Napoleon Hill researched more than forty millionaires to find out what made them the men that they were.”

Review: “I was introduced to ‘Think and Grow Rich!’ by an alcoholic member of our cemetery sales team.”

Customers Also Bought: “Eat That Frog!”

Footnote: First published in 1937, among the book’s thirteen principles of success is “The Mystery of Sex Transmutation”.

Think and Grow Rich [Amazon]

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So very simpleton.Title: “Conform: Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education”

Authors: Glenn Beck and Kyle Olson

Rank: 5

Blurb: “There is no issue more important to America’s future than education. The fact that we’ve yielded control over it to powerful unions and ideologically driven elitists is inexcusable.”

Review: “Over the past several months more and more information has been trickling out about this insidious curriculum that is being touted by all the usual suspects on the Left.”

Customers Also Bought: “As It Was in the Days of Noah: Warnings from Bible Prophecy About the Coming Global Storm”

Footnote: Actually, Common Core criticism is bipartisan, as demonstrated by public-school dad Louis CK. It’s the New Math of our time.

Conform [Amazon]

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Like a Duck.Title: “You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter”

Author: Joe Dispenza

Rank: 57

Blurb: “Is it possible to heal by thought alone—without drugs or surgery? The truth is that it happens more often than you might expect. In You Are the Placebo, Dr. Joe Dispenza shares numerous documented cases of those who reversed cancer, heart disease, depression, crippling arthritis, and even the tremors of Parkinson’s disease by believing in a placebo.”

Review: “A big THANK YOU to Dr. Joe for sharing, caring, and for your guidance as we evolve!”

Customers Also Bought: “Frequency: The Power of Personal Vibration”

Footnote: “Dr. Joe is a faculty member at the International Quantum University for Integrative Medicine in Honolulu and an invited chair of the research committee at Life University in Atlanta, where he earned his doctor of chiropractic degree.”

You Are the Placebo [Amazon]

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Money always wins.Title: “Smart Money Smart Kids: Raising the Next Generation to Win with Money”

Authors: Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze

Rank: 10

Blurb: “Starting with the basics like working, spending, saving, and giving, and moving into more challenging issues like avoiding debt for life, paying cash for college, and battling discontentment, Dave and Rachel present a no-nonsense, common-sense approach for changing your family tree.”

Review: “While written from a Christian perspective, this book is not a Bible study.”

Customers Also Bought: “Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money” by Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Footnote: When we attended the University of Oregon from 1977-1981, in-state tuition was around $225 per quarterly term. This spring, it’s $3,770. Explain to us how a bog-standard middle-class student can gin up forty large plus rent for a college education at a state school without taking on soul-crushing loans.

Or, y’know, just return taxes to reasonable levels.

Smart Money Smart Kids [Amazon]

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Happy Magic Realism Day!Title: “One Hundred Years of Solitude”

Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Rank: 1

Blurb: “Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive.”

Review: “Hats off to those who could finish it. I, unfortunately, could not.”

Customers Also Bought: Everything else they ignored in College Lit.

Footnote: Also #14, #20, #30, and #40. Watch yer back, Frozen tie-ins.

One Hundred Years of Solitude [Amazon]

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Jesus died for your taste in children’s books.Title: “The Berenstain Bears and the Easter Story”

Authors: Mike Berenstain and Jan Berenstain

Rank: 9

Blurb: “The Bear cubs and Papa are candy-crazy this Easter! But Mama, with help from Papa, tells the cubs about Jesus’ resurrection and shows them that salvation is much sweeter than candy. Includes a colorful sticker set.”

Review: “The raging offense of the Berenstains is the post-feminist Papa Bear, the Alan Alda of Grizzlies, a wimp so passive and fumbling he makes Dagwood Bumstead look like Batman.” —Charles Krauthammer, 1989

Customers Also Bought: “Dinosaurs Eggs with Mini Toy Dinosaur Figures Inside”

Footnote: We’re more than a little curious about the backstory, since Papa Berenstain was Jewish and Mama Berenstain was Episcopalian.

The Berenstain Bears and the Easter Story [Amazon]

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Title: “The Last Days of Jesus: His Life and Times”

Author: Bill O’Reilly

Rank: 10

Blurb: “Two thousand years ago, Jesus walked across Galilee; everywhere he traveled he gained followers. His contemporaries are familiar historical figures: Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, Herod the Great, Pontius Pilate. It was an era of oppression, when every man, woman, and child answered to the brutal rule of Rome. In this world, Jesus lived, and in this volatile political and historical context, Jesus died — and changed the world forever.”

Review: “My grandson loves to read and has just been baptized. He is a teenager and big into history of all kinds. He learns a lot from the books by O’Reilly.”

Customers Also Bought: “RectiCare Anorectal Cream”

Footnote: Actually, Paul changed the world forever. Or Constantine. We don’t tend to credit sand for pearls.

The Last Days of Jesus [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon Kickback Link]